Sinners in the hand of a Good God!

The best, most loving dad willingly sacrificed His only son to utter rejection, humiliation, torture and ultimate death to save an ungrateful, hell-bent people, and He is often billed as “an angry God”. Go figure!  God so loved the world that He gave Jesus.

Papa has been so misrepresented by His representatives because they fear He’s too good. Just like Jonah, they’re sure He’ll forgive people and they won’t appreciate Him. So they malign His character to portray an angry God to make people too afraid to sin.

Wow, that approach has been an utter failure.  There hasn’t been a single righteous person since creation save the Lord Jesus Christ.  Turns out the rules, laws and regulations lathered on by religious people have actually done the very opposite, they have actually given sin its strength (1 Co.15:56). 

If you board an aircraft bound for Poughkeepsie, you can obey all the rules like a good passenger.  You can hope and believe that if you’re good enough the pilot will fly you to Disneyland because that’s where you really want to be, but guess what?  Forget the sun screen, you’re going to Poughkeepsie!

 

Romans 2:4 says it’s the “goodness of God” that leads to repentance.  Nothing irks pretty good people like God being good to people who don’t deserve it, but that’s His amazing, radical Grace.  That’s also what He knows really leads people to repentance.  Not rules.   Not fear.  Guess what, Father knows best.

Truth is, even “pretty good” people need God’s Grace, every bit as much as the “notable sinners” the Bible mentions.  I am against sin and ungodly living, and I am all for holiness.  I believe the way you get there is the way Jesus provided by His finished work on the cross.

Fear can get people to alter their behavior while the fear is present.  That’s “behavior modification”.  God chose goodness knowing a heart flooded with His love produces transformation from the inside out that is lasting, whether the person is in a loving environment or a loveless setting.

Fear preaching like “sinners in the hand of an angry God” may fill the altar with fearful supplicants, but Jesus is more interested in filling the Lamb’s book of life with the names of people He died to redeem.  What a good God.  He really is, just that in to you!